9 ms·

Somewhat off-topic, but since people are using this to riff on the Electoral College I'll drop in a mention for the National Popular Vote: http://www.nationalpo

by Cushman 14y ago

Somewhat off-topic, but since people are using this to riff on the Electoral College I'll drop in a mention for the National Popular Vote: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/ http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/ Basically: The states themselves can require a fair election for the Presidency without any need for a Constitutional amendment or even a Federal law— this has been robustly defended by legal scholars, and it's already half-way to completion. If your state isn't on that list, do your country a favor and call your state representative about it.

yakiv 14y ago
Wow. I'd heard about this, but I had no idea it had made so much headway. From the website: "The National Popular Vote law has been enacted by states possessing 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate it." From Wikipedia, for additional explanation: "The agreement is to go into effect only when the participating states that have joined the compact together have an absolute majority in the Electoral College. . . . Until the compact is joined by states with a majority of electoral votes, all states will continue to award their electoral votes in their current manner." I initially thought that the first quote was saying that the national popular vote had gotten to 49% of the 50% of the total pool of electoral votes needed to activate it, but no, that's not what it says. It currently has about 24.5% of the total pool of electoral votes.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
gknoy 14y ago
I'd be happier to see states allocate votes not all-to-the-same-guy, but rather in proportion to the popular vote. (Whether nationally or in your state.) So, California might have 20 votes for X, 20 for Y, 10 for Z, and 5 for Q. That would help ensure that your vote matters within your state, and preserves Some electoral votes for third party candidates. The goal as I see it should not be to elect the Most Popular President, but rather to most-faithfully represent the voting preferences of the constituents. The net result should be similar -- or will be if all states were to do this. Of course I also dream on being able to vote for contingent people, so that I can vote for a 3rd party candidate, but if he's not going to win, have my vote count for a different candidate. I forget the name of this, but it's complicated yet very elegant. It allows you to vote your conscience and yet not worry about "throwing away" your vote and letting That Guy win because you didn't vote for his most-winning opponent.
- Cushman 14y ago
  > The goal as I see it should not be to elect the Most Popular President The goal is for every American citizen's vote for President to count for exactly as much as any other citizen's. That means, yes, the person who gets the most votes wins. How else can it work? I'd encourage you to take a look at the National Popular Vote's site, especially http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php . They've put quite a bit of thought into it.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    Better than a simple majority election or instant runoff would be approval voting. Suppose 40% of people strongly favor the Republican, and 39% the Democrat. However, suppose 62% would accept the leading independent candidate as a second choice. More people would be more happy if the voting system allowed the independent to win in this case.
    - Cushman 14y ago
      Maybe, but that's completely tangential to the question of whether a vote for President should count the same across state lines.
      - just2n 14y ago
        Not really, it actually assumes that all votes are equal. As soon as two votes from any two different people in the country are inequal, no voting system can be fair. So following the discussion, he saw we were supposing that all votes be made equal. In seeing this, we've already discussed how this effectively means presidential election is a simple majority, and his point was that simple majority isn't a good system by which to make a decision in a large group of people, that another one, any one that has proportionate voting for multiple candidates, can actually result in a much more agreeable outcome, but it assumes all votes are equal in power. If the question is "should they count the same" -- the answer is an unequivocal yes, and almost every person would agree. Voting reform requires that people put in power by bad systems willingly reform those systems which would see them removed from power. Corruption doesn't remove itself, so discussing this at all is moot, really.
euroclydon 14y ago
I suppose you also feel we should reconfigure the Senate? It is certainly not evenly apportioned.
- Cushman 14y ago
  I think there are good arguments for abolishing the Senate and returning the House to proportionality, but at least everyone gets a vote for their Senator that counts. You can't use the disproportionality of the legislature to defend disenfranchisement of Americans on a national scale.
  - euroclydon 14y ago
    You can't use the disproportionality of the legislature to defend disenfranchisement of Americans on a national scale. What's the difference really? Take Civil Rights for example. The Senate held this up against popular will for at least a decade, and arguably much longer, but we did thankfully finally get the Voting Rights Act and the Civils Right Act, and I would argue that Slavery and Civil Rights were a special case of growing pains that the country had to go through, and not a reason to change the whole structure of government. I think it's obvious that the authors of the constitution purposely created our government with with built-in dampers against simple majority rule, and I would be very hesitant to remove them.
    - Cushman 14y ago
      The difference is that every state has one Senator (per cycle), and every state resident gets one vote for Senator that counts the same as everyone else's. Representation on a national level is disproportionate, but on a vote-to-vote level the election is fair. This is not the case in the Presidential election; the President is supposed to represent all Americans, and yet when campaign season comes around we get maps that look like this: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378/a-campaign-map-morphed-by-money http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378...
  - apendleton 14y ago
    > but at least everyone gets a vote for their Senator that counts Unless you live in DC. We get disenfranchised there, too.
Steko 14y ago
Here's the two big problems with the National Popular Vote: (1) "it's already half-way to completion". Yes with all blue states. Basically changing the system will favor one party. The other party will not favor it meaning you lose 1/4 to 1/3 of the states. And you lose another 1/4 to 1/3 of states because swing states will also not favor it (they would stand to lose billions in advertising). So this sort of coalition will tend to always be stuck around 1/2 to 2/3 of where it needs to get to. (2) "without any need for a Constitutional amendment" Technically yes you don't but then you're depending on the goodwill of other states. If some state doesn't like the way the election is going to turn out they can bust the coalition by changing their participation at the last moment. That's a recipe for disaster, the rules for the election should be as clear and open as possible as far in advance as possible.
- scarmig 14y ago
  As to 1)... Actually, at least in the USA's current configuration, the electoral college appears to favor Democrats. A tie or small Romney win in the national popular vote, for instance, would have more likely than not equated to an Obama win. I think it's genuinely about ideology, here: favoring the will of the people over the historically contingent existence of the electoral college is making a kind of ideological statement. The kind that appeals to many liberals and is a turn-off to conservatives.
  - Steko 14y ago
    "the electoral college appears to favor Democrats." The electoral college has several distortions. The big one and it's raison d'etre is that it distributes power towards rural states and away from population centers. There's little question which party that favors. Now it's certainly possible that Romney could have won the popular vote and lost the electoral college due to the first past the post distortion that dilutes big majorities. But that really says more about the relative competence of the two campaigns then it does about whether the electoral college structurally favors the Democrats. Romney clearly needed to run quite a bit farther to the middle than he did.
    - 14y ago
earlyresort 14y ago
The United States has a federal government for a reason. The government is constructed in such a way that the majority doesn't get whatever it wants, if that majority isn't broadly representative of America as a whole. In particular, the Electoral College ensures presidential candidates must appeal to a wide variety of people, from across multiple regions of America - instead of just focusing on running up the totals in large cities, which is what would happen if the Electoral College didn't exist. In the last election both political parties had to pay attention to the entirety of the electorate, from every county, in states as diverse as Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Nevada. You could do America a favor by calling your state representatives and telling them what a goofy idea this is.
- Cushman 14y ago
  Please read the site. You are exactly wrong. http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php MYTH: Candidates would "fly over" most of the country under a national popular vote. This criticism applies to the current system of electing the President—not a national popular vote. Under the current system, two-thirds of the states are indeed "fly-over" country. In 2004, the presidential candidates concentrated two-thirds of their campaign visits and money in just five states, 80% in just nine states, and 99% of their money in just 16 states. As early as the spring of 2008, the major political parties acknowledged that there would be only 14 battleground states in 2008. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign events and ad money in just states, and 98% in just 15 states.
  - gyardley 14y ago
    I did read the site, and I am exactly right. You just don't understand the point I'm making. Where did the candidates go in the states they did visit? Did they just stick to the cities, or did they go talk to people in small communities? Did they decide that they could get by with only one type of person, or did they have to try to appeal to the entire population of that state? I am pretty confident that a presidential campaign that has to contend with rural and small-town voters in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado will have to take into consideration some people like me, even though my state's not going to be a 'swing state' any time soon. Those states are plenty different and there's plenty of difference within them, as well. I can't say the same about a campaign that focuses on the top fifty metropolitan statistical areas, which is exactly what would happen with your scheme.
johngalt 14y ago
I've already seen that site, only it was at a different URL. http://www.CaliforniaAndNewYorkShouldRuleTheWorld.org/ http://www.CaliforniaAndNewYorkShouldRuleTheWorld.org/
- Cushman 14y ago
  Oh well, since I'm here anyway... http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php MYTH: Only the big states would matter under a national popular vote. ... If anyone is genuinely concerned about the possibility that a candidate could win the Presidency in a nationwide popular vote by winning 100% of the popular vote in the 11 largest states, they should note that the situation is even worse under the current system. Under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system, a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the popular vote in the 11 largest states. That is, under the current system, it is possible for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 26% of the nation's popular votes.
tunesmith 14y ago
I used to object to switching to the popular vote, for various constitutional reasons. But I came across one justification that blew away all my objections. Namely, the House of Representatives was originally designed to grow along with the population. If it had been allowed to keep growing, then that "built-in advantage" of less-populous states would have dissipated. In other words, that built-in advantage wasn't actually built-in. The system was designed to degrade it over time. In other words, if it had continued as it was, we'd have somewhere around... I forget, 3500 - 4000 representatives today. And that would change the electoral college calculations, to the point that they would almost exactly mirror the popular vote. It's asymptotic, but as the population grows, the (unrestricted) EC approaches the popular vote. It's worth noting that if the house of reps had been allowed to keep growing, Gore would have beaten Bush via electoral-college counting, hanging chads be damned. So there's nothing sacred about the less populous states. Their advantage only exists because of the much-later agreement to freeze the growth of the house of reps.
- Cushman 14y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out: to quote the site again, "The Founding Fathers did not create or anticipate—much less favor—our current system of electing the President." Even more interesting, they note that the Constitutional Convention did consider electing the President by a direct national popular vote, which proposal failed by... wait for it... one vote.

by Cushman 14y ago

yakiv 14y ago

Wow. I'd heard about this, but I had no idea it had made so much headway. From the website: "The National Popular Vote law has been enacted by states possessing 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate it." From Wikipedia, for additional explanation: "The agreement is to go into effect only when the participating states that have joined the compact together have an absolute majority in the Electoral College. . . . Until the compact is joined by states with a majority of electoral votes, all states will continue to award their electoral votes in their current manner." I initially thought that the first quote was saying that the national popular vote had gotten to 49% of the 50% of the total pool of electoral votes needed to activate it, but no, that's not what it says. It currently has about 24.5% of the total pool of electoral votes.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

gknoy 14y ago

I'd be happier to see states allocate votes not all-to-the-same-guy, but rather in proportion to the popular vote. (Whether nationally or in your state.) So, California might have 20 votes for X, 20 for Y, 10 for Z, and 5 for Q. That would help ensure that your vote matters within your state, and preserves Some electoral votes for third party candidates. The goal as I see it should not be to elect the Most Popular President, but rather to most-faithfully represent the voting preferences of the constituents. The net result should be similar -- or will be if all states were to do this. Of course I also dream on being able to vote for contingent people, so that I can vote for a 3rd party candidate, but if he's not going to win, have my vote count for a different candidate. I forget the name of this, but it's complicated yet very elegant. It allows you to vote your conscience and yet not worry about "throwing away" your vote and letting That Guy win because you didn't vote for his most-winning opponent.

Cushman 14y ago
> The goal as I see it should not be to elect the Most Popular President The goal is for every American citizen's vote for President to count for exactly as much as any other citizen's. That means, yes, the person who gets the most votes wins. How else can it work? I'd encourage you to take a look at the National Popular Vote's site, especially http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php . They've put quite a bit of thought into it.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  Better than a simple majority election or instant runoff would be approval voting. Suppose 40% of people strongly favor the Republican, and 39% the Democrat. However, suppose 62% would accept the leading independent candidate as a second choice. More people would be more happy if the voting system allowed the independent to win in this case.
  - Cushman 14y ago
    Maybe, but that's completely tangential to the question of whether a vote for President should count the same across state lines.
    - just2n 14y ago
      Not really, it actually assumes that all votes are equal. As soon as two votes from any two different people in the country are inequal, no voting system can be fair. So following the discussion, he saw we were supposing that all votes be made equal. In seeing this, we've already discussed how this effectively means presidential election is a simple majority, and his point was that simple majority isn't a good system by which to make a decision in a large group of people, that another one, any one that has proportionate voting for multiple candidates, can actually result in a much more agreeable outcome, but it assumes all votes are equal in power. If the question is "should they count the same" -- the answer is an unequivocal yes, and almost every person would agree. Voting reform requires that people put in power by bad systems willingly reform those systems which would see them removed from power. Corruption doesn't remove itself, so discussing this at all is moot, really.

euroclydon 14y ago

I suppose you also feel we should reconfigure the Senate? It is certainly not evenly apportioned.

Cushman 14y ago
I think there are good arguments for abolishing the Senate and returning the House to proportionality, but at least everyone gets a vote for their Senator that counts. You can't use the disproportionality of the legislature to defend disenfranchisement of Americans on a national scale.
- euroclydon 14y ago
  You can't use the disproportionality of the legislature to defend disenfranchisement of Americans on a national scale. What's the difference really? Take Civil Rights for example. The Senate held this up against popular will for at least a decade, and arguably much longer, but we did thankfully finally get the Voting Rights Act and the Civils Right Act, and I would argue that Slavery and Civil Rights were a special case of growing pains that the country had to go through, and not a reason to change the whole structure of government. I think it's obvious that the authors of the constitution purposely created our government with with built-in dampers against simple majority rule, and I would be very hesitant to remove them.
  - Cushman 14y ago
    The difference is that every state has one Senator (per cycle), and every state resident gets one vote for Senator that counts the same as everyone else's. Representation on a national level is disproportionate, but on a vote-to-vote level the election is fair. This is not the case in the Presidential election; the President is supposed to represent all Americans, and yet when campaign season comes around we get maps that look like this: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378/a-campaign-map-morphed-by-money http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378...
- apendleton 14y ago
  > but at least everyone gets a vote for their Senator that counts Unless you live in DC. We get disenfranchised there, too.

Steko 14y ago

Here's the two big problems with the National Popular Vote: (1) "it's already half-way to completion". Yes with all blue states. Basically changing the system will favor one party. The other party will not favor it meaning you lose 1/4 to 1/3 of the states. And you lose another 1/4 to 1/3 of states because swing states will also not favor it (they would stand to lose billions in advertising). So this sort of coalition will tend to always be stuck around 1/2 to 2/3 of where it needs to get to. (2) "without any need for a Constitutional amendment" Technically yes you don't but then you're depending on the goodwill of other states. If some state doesn't like the way the election is going to turn out they can bust the coalition by changing their participation at the last moment. That's a recipe for disaster, the rules for the election should be as clear and open as possible as far in advance as possible.

scarmig 14y ago
As to 1)... Actually, at least in the USA's current configuration, the electoral college appears to favor Democrats. A tie or small Romney win in the national popular vote, for instance, would have more likely than not equated to an Obama win. I think it's genuinely about ideology, here: favoring the will of the people over the historically contingent existence of the electoral college is making a kind of ideological statement. The kind that appeals to many liberals and is a turn-off to conservatives.
- Steko 14y ago
  "the electoral college appears to favor Democrats." The electoral college has several distortions. The big one and it's raison d'etre is that it distributes power towards rural states and away from population centers. There's little question which party that favors. Now it's certainly possible that Romney could have won the popular vote and lost the electoral college due to the first past the post distortion that dilutes big majorities. But that really says more about the relative competence of the two campaigns then it does about whether the electoral college structurally favors the Democrats. Romney clearly needed to run quite a bit farther to the middle than he did.
  - 14y ago

earlyresort 14y ago

The United States has a federal government for a reason. The government is constructed in such a way that the majority doesn't get whatever it wants, if that majority isn't broadly representative of America as a whole. In particular, the Electoral College ensures presidential candidates must appeal to a wide variety of people, from across multiple regions of America - instead of just focusing on running up the totals in large cities, which is what would happen if the Electoral College didn't exist. In the last election both political parties had to pay attention to the entirety of the electorate, from every county, in states as diverse as Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Nevada. You could do America a favor by calling your state representatives and telling them what a goofy idea this is.

Cushman 14y ago
Please read the site. You are exactly wrong. http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php MYTH: Candidates would "fly over" most of the country under a national popular vote. This criticism applies to the current system of electing the President—not a national popular vote. Under the current system, two-thirds of the states are indeed "fly-over" country. In 2004, the presidential candidates concentrated two-thirds of their campaign visits and money in just five states, 80% in just nine states, and 99% of their money in just 16 states. As early as the spring of 2008, the major political parties acknowledged that there would be only 14 battleground states in 2008. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign events and ad money in just states, and 98% in just 15 states.
- gyardley 14y ago
  I did read the site, and I am exactly right. You just don't understand the point I'm making. Where did the candidates go in the states they did visit? Did they just stick to the cities, or did they go talk to people in small communities? Did they decide that they could get by with only one type of person, or did they have to try to appeal to the entire population of that state? I am pretty confident that a presidential campaign that has to contend with rural and small-town voters in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado will have to take into consideration some people like me, even though my state's not going to be a 'swing state' any time soon. Those states are plenty different and there's plenty of difference within them, as well. I can't say the same about a campaign that focuses on the top fifty metropolitan statistical areas, which is exactly what would happen with your scheme.

johngalt 14y ago

I've already seen that site, only it was at a different URL. http://www.CaliforniaAndNewYorkShouldRuleTheWorld.org/ http://www.CaliforniaAndNewYorkShouldRuleTheWorld.org/

Cushman 14y ago
Oh well, since I'm here anyway... http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php MYTH: Only the big states would matter under a national popular vote. ... If anyone is genuinely concerned about the possibility that a candidate could win the Presidency in a nationwide popular vote by winning 100% of the popular vote in the 11 largest states, they should note that the situation is even worse under the current system. Under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system, a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the popular vote in the 11 largest states. That is, under the current system, it is possible for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 26% of the nation's popular votes.

tunesmith 14y ago

I used to object to switching to the popular vote, for various constitutional reasons. But I came across one justification that blew away all my objections. Namely, the House of Representatives was originally designed to grow along with the population. If it had been allowed to keep growing, then that "built-in advantage" of less-populous states would have dissipated. In other words, that built-in advantage wasn't actually built-in. The system was designed to degrade it over time. In other words, if it had continued as it was, we'd have somewhere around... I forget, 3500 - 4000 representatives today. And that would change the electoral college calculations, to the point that they would almost exactly mirror the popular vote. It's asymptotic, but as the population grows, the (unrestricted) EC approaches the popular vote. It's worth noting that if the house of reps had been allowed to keep growing, Gore would have beaten Bush via electoral-college counting, hanging chads be damned. So there's nothing sacred about the less populous states. Their advantage only exists because of the much-later agreement to freeze the growth of the house of reps.

Cushman 14y ago
Thanks for pointing that out: to quote the site again, "The Founding Fathers did not create or anticipate—much less favor—our current system of electing the President." Even more interesting, they note that the Constitutional Convention did consider electing the President by a direct national popular vote, which proposal failed by... wait for it... one vote.